Seven Principles of a Rigorous
Computer Backup System

A well thought out computer backup system will protect against every possibility of data loss, no matter how remote that loss may seem. If you ignore potential loss scenarios then Murphy’s Law will eventually come into play and destroy your data. In its simplest form, this law says “If anything can go wrong, then it will go wrong.”

When this law is applied to your hard drive data and the surrounding technology that supports it, it will find a large number of ways to corrupt your data. The expense of recovering from a failed hard drive can easily be thousands of dollars. Compared with the possibility of doing a hard drive data recovery, an ounce of prevention is really worth much more than a pound of cure.

What follows are the methods and principles of a sound computer backup system. Implementing each of these seven items will insure the safety and integrity of your data for years to come.

1. Backup all your data – When you only backup data you have created yourself, you often miss all of the operating system configuration data. In the case of the Windows PC, this data can be scattered in varied and unknown locations. Reloading an operating system can be time consuming but restoring all of the program unique configuration data can be daunting, especially when you’re pressed for time.

2. Backup frequently – Your backup schedule should match the workload. If you constantly generate new files and data throughout the day, then your computer backup system should be backing up the changed files throughout the day.

3. Backup offsite – Keeping your backup CDs or tapes near the computer being backed up, only protects you from a hard drive failure. It will not protect you from fire, theft, or terrorist events. With an internet connection, it’s easier than ever to do regular offsite backups.

4. Keep old backups – Sometimes, corrupted backup files are not discovered until weeks or months after the file was corrupted. So if you rotate through your backup media once a week, there will be no way to recover from a corruption discovered more than a week after it was created.

5. Test your backups – Test your entire backup process on a regular basis. If you’ve never tried to recover your whole system from your backup media, you have no assurance that you can recover when disaster happens.

6. Physically protect your backups – Secure your backup media in a locked area. A thief will aim for the weakest link: if the computers are in a secure area, then perhaps the backup tapes are easier to obtain?

7. Verify the integrity of your backups – Use two forms of computational security to insure the integrity of your backups. Encryption is necessary to insure that an unauthorized person will be unable to read your backup data, and a strong algorithmic checksum will insure that your backup data has not been altered in any way.

If your company computer backup system is missing any of these critical points, then it’s probable that your business will suffer a serious data loss sometime in the future. If thus far, you have avoided a disaster recovery scenario, then consider yourself lucky. Consider this an opportunity to correct that oversight.

Related pages you might want to read:

Learn about backup basics.

Features to look for in backup software.

Free backup software.

Doing backups the automatic way.

The benefits of the online backup.

Security issues in offsite backups.

"Free. Automatic. Secure. Mozy Online Backup"

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